It will be
apparent that the duty of preparing Mr. Wilbur's biography could not
have fallen into more sympathetic hands.
In a private letter with which the reverend gentleman has since
favored us, he expresses the opinion that Mr. Wilbur's life was
shortened by our unhappy civil war. It disturbed his studies,
dislocated all his habitual associations and trains of thought, and
unsettled the foundations of a faith, rather the result of habit than
conviction, in the capacity of man for self-government. "Such has
been the felicity of my life," he said to Mr. Hitchcock, on the very
morning of the day he died, "that, through the divine mercy, I could
always say, _Summum nec metuo diem, nec opto_. It has been my habit,
as you know, on every recurrence of this blessed anniversary, to read
Milton's 'Hymn of the Nativity' till its sublime harmonies so dilated
my soul and quickened its spiritual sense that I seemed to hear that
other song which gave assurance to the shepherds that there was
One who would lead them also in green pastures and beside the still
waters. But to-day I have been unable to think of anything but that
mournful text, 'I came not to send peace, but a sword,' and, did it
not smack of pagan presumptuousness, could almost wish I had never
lived to see this day.
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